Posted: 11 April 2006
Professor Soo Downe, BA(hons), RM, MSc, PhD
Soo qualified as a midwife in 1985, having trained as a direct entrant (non-nurse) student. She then spent 15 years working in various clinical, research, and project development roles at Derby City General Hospital. During this time, she served on both the English National Board for Nursing Midwifery and Health Visiting and on the midwifery committee of the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing Midwifery and Health Visiting.
From January 2001 Soo has worked at the University of Central Lancashire in England, where she is now the Professor of Midwifery Studies. She set up the UCLan midwifery studies research unit, now known as the Women Infant and Sexual Health (or WISH) research unit, which was launched in October 2002. She is the unit director. She currently chairs the UK Royal College Midwives Campaign for Birth steering committee, and in March 2006 she was appointed as the Francine Gooris International Chair of Midwifery at the Artevelde Hogeschool, Ghent, Belgium. She has been a member of the RCM, and of the UK Association of Radical Midwives, since 1983, and she was appointed as a member of the MRC College of Experts in 2006. Her main research focus at present is the nature of, and culture around, normal birth.